Today’s Revolutionary: Leonard Nimoy’s Photographs

Leonard Nimoy, the actor who is best known for playing Mr. Spock in the Startrek TV series and movies, lived long and prospered, and just passed away at 83. Besides his acting, he directed movies, appeared on Broadway, while leading a parallel career as a photographer. His photos were remarkable, including a series he called “The Full Body Project”, of women with, well, full bodies. The pictures, to me, totally honor the subjects, who are variously clothed and not, and in one case mimic the poses of a familiar group of nude dancers by Matisse.

Then, if you like, contact us below, and we can talk about how you can form your own groups. We’ll put you in touch with someone who can help you do that!

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Favorite Sites

Here are some other sites that Kim and Paul read, that we think you might enjoy.

Winkomun: This is a site of the ACAF network, mostly in Europe. They are doing great work and are Northern Lights leaders. Nice video where various members answer the question, “What is a Group”? Also available in español, català, and français. Where else can you get news about Savings Groups in Catalan?

The SEEP Savings Led Working Group site. Congratulations to SEEP for putting together this comprehensive, easily accessible go-to site on savings groups. Check out their library, their report on outreach by country, and lots of other goodies.

Village Finance Blog. Brett Hudson Matthew’s thoughtful posts are grounded in an understanding of oral cultures, history, and social dynamics. Recommended for anyone trying to understand what’s really happening in savings groups.

Institute for Money, Technology and Financial Inclusion at UC Irvine. “Its mission is to support research on money and technology among the world’s poorest people. We seek to create a community of practice and inquiry into the everyday uses and meanings of money, as well as … technological infrastructures”. ‘Nuff said.

David Roodman’s Microfinance Open Book Blog. David Roodman combines intelligence, honesty, and a sense of humor. He attempts to bring intellectual rigor to the analysis of the impact of financial services, and isn’t afraid to ruffle a few feathers in the process.

Clean Air, Bright Light. This site by Savings Revolution co-founder Paul Rippey contains useful information about lessons learned in using savings groups to promote clean lighting. Still in development but check it out anyway!

Center for Financial Inclusion. CFI supports traditional microfinance to become more client friendly, more inclusive, and generally smarter. They have a long-term vision for the sector, and the blog attracts many good writers and thoughtful comments.

Financial Promise for the Poor: How Groups Bulld Microsavingsis your go-to book on savings groups. Its contributors are authors you often read in this blog. It covers current innovations in microsavings happening around the world.

Also, don’t miss…

Savings Groups at the Frontier, the book inspired by the 2011 Savings Group Summit!

Search Savings Revolution

Over the last twenty years, many people have become interested in helping poor people around the world get good financial services. Mohammed Yunus and the institution he founded, the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, won a Noble Prize in 2006 for helping start a movement that has brought financial services to millions around the world.

Banks and microfinance institutions are one way to bring financial series to the poor. Savings Groups, managed by the members and based on savings rather than debt, are another solution. In fact, we think they’re such a good solution that they really are revolutionary.

Savings Groups are self-selected groups of 15 to 30 women and men who get together to save and borrow. Rather than go into debt to an external institution, they manage their own savings through transparent procedures and all the money they earn through interest on loans stays in their village, and in their group.

This seven-minute video is a great short introduction to savings groups:

A number of international non-profit organizations work with local partners to train people in villages and cities in how to manage their own savings groups. There are now over five million savings group members in Africa alone, and the movement is also growing in Asia and Latin America. (There are even a few groups in Europe and North America).

Savings Revolution is designed to help you learn more about Savings Groups, and to get involved with the most exciting new approach to bringing safe financial services to people around the world.

Five Odowa Cluster groupsThree days ago I was in Western Kenya and saw some of the ways that Savings Groups are still being created and supported, ten months after CARE stopped paying trainers to form new groups.

Odowa Cluster has ten groups, whose membership is capped at forty members each. The groups meet fortnightly, with five groups meeting one Wednesday afternoon, and another five meeting the following week. CARE’s Community Based Trainer had left service after forming three groups in the cluster; the members have continued to add new groups to the cluster, and also have traveled to train two new groups “over the hill” from the village.

Odowa Committee (gatekeeper in the middle)The meetings I observed was disciplined and well-attended. All the groups use passbooks, and have metal lockboxes. The groups have a common social fund reserved for funerals; each group keeps its social fund, but they all contribute to the costs of funerals when any member of any group has a funeral. Members pay KShs 20 every fortnight, or USD 6.23 per person per year, into the social fund.

The cluster has a committee of five volunteers – four managers and a gatekeeper – who come to all meetings, help groups that need help, and train new groups. They have no salary, although groups usually give them some money at the time of share-out. I asked Walter Otieno Aouko, one of the managers, why he donated his time. “Many people around here are poor,” he said. “The groups help them get out of poverty.”

CARE has also been encouraging post-project expansion and support by converting their trainers into “village agents” who work on a fee-for-service basis. I had a chance to talk to six or seven of them. Most reported that they had trouble getting groups to pay the requested fee, and most were working for less than the requested amount of 200 shillings (about two and a half dollars) per person, for the total training cycle. One young trainer, Veronique, was still supported by the active committee of the Catholic Church, and said that all the ten groups she had trained had paid in full. I asked a group of village agents what they thought of their prospects? There was a long pause. One responded cryptically, “There was life before the project came. There will be life after the project.”

What’s the best way to keep the boxes moving?Since the project’s first phase ended in June 2010, CARE says that 168 fee-for-service groups have been formed with about 5000 members; CARE also says they know of about 3000 members of spontaneous groups, though there is no easy or systematic way to track them, and CARE suspects that the spontaneous groups have more members than the fee-for-service groups.

Which approach – volunteerism or fee-for-service – is better? I asked the village agents, and they argued that the quality of their training was better than the volunteer groups; perhaps that is true, although Odowa cluster seemed as well trained and disciplined as any groups I have seen anywhere.

Financial Sector Deepening Trust in Kenya is carrying out research to attempt to compare the quality of groups formed by the two channels. Oxfam has examined the question also in a very different context in Mali. There may not be a unique answer to this important question.

Do any readers think we already know the answer? Leave us your comments…

Reader Comments (7)

Wonderful work that CARE is doing with savings groups in rural western Kenya. Looks like concerted trainings are now resulting in group replication and more importantly, sharing of best practices. Keep up the good work.

I can't say that I have any answers at all. But I find this discussion intensely interesting because we are about to embark on a series of discussions with our groups regarding this very topic.

What I do have is more questions. And the one that I haven't heard asked yet?

Is it more effective for an organization to start by paying a community agent a stipend (or whatever) and then 'graduate' them to fee-for-service paid by groups....or is it better to go right to the fee-for-service?

I, for one, will be very, very keen to see the results of the Financial Sector Deepening Trust in Kenya.

Well, since I posted that I had a great talk with Nelly Otieno, and I see things a bit differently. In fact, both approaches can work well, and both approaches are having good results - but, so much depends on the person. It's wrong to assume that every CBT is a born entrepreneur, and it's wrong to assume that none of them are. It's equally wrong to assume that all groups and members are motivated by community spirit, but also wrong to assume that none are. So now I think the challenge is to find a way to be discerning. I'm proposing that CARE orient their CBTs like this:

Congratulations on being selected as Community Based Trainers! We are going to train you in all aspects of your job, so that you will be able to train the women and men of the area to save and borrow. We will pay you a stipend for each person trained, and you must provide excellent service to them, because after we leave, the people you train will train more people, until the GSL approach becomes a part of the culture, and everyone will have access to this. When we leave, you will be able to say that you made a real difference in the lives of the people here, and you will have more standing in the community, and confidence as you look for your next employment. And, we will invite some of you, based on your ability to train and empower groups, for special training so that after we leave, you can continue as independent business people collecting fees from new groups that you will recruit and train. This can be the start of a career for you, as a Village Agent, doing valuable and satisfying work.

Something like that - encourage volunteerism, AND take the most apt CBTs and turn them loose as independent entrepreneurs.

BTW, I'm enjoying seeing the Village Agent program working here in Rwanda. Seems fine! But it still is nowhere near the CPM of CARE in Kenya, which I now think is a Disruptive Technology - it is so much more efficient than any other approach, that the other approaches are obsolete, unless they adapt quickly.

Wow! great stuff! This is why this type of project is so fascinating...there are very few black and white, slam dunk answers!

and I LOVE the concept of a Disruptive Technology! Something that doesn't behave like we think we want it to and keep us on our toes....as someone once shouted at me as they blazed running past me as I was jogging complacently.....GET OUT OF YOUR COMFORT ZONE!!

Very helpful article, Paul. The Chalmers Center is inaugurating a program initially in West Africa that is a combination of fee for service training with outside support. We have been very encouraged by how entrepreneurial some of our existing trainers have turned out to be in our efforts to date. We are expanding our training efforts by finding local trainers who are selected for their training skills and entrepreneurial ability. The trainers will market and provide savings and credit training services and charge small, affordable fees. Because these fees will not fully cover expenses, each team of trainers will be supported with funds from the US in addition to program material, trainer training and operational support.

Thanks Mike. Interesting, and when you feel like the time is right, we'd love to have you write it up here. This is a hot topic, and the only thing I know for sure about fee-for-service is that the amount of confidence some people have in it seems over the top. I'm curious what your projected CPM is? Cheers.

Let me be the devill's advocate here.what are we basically saying here?- that we have not been adding value to what communities can do with all the training mentoring and supervison , attempts to have best practices proved for recruitment , training and group support fo savings groups? if so where des the role of the agency like CARE start and end in promoting the savings groups concept? what obligations do we have on introducing this concepet to the community.?

what other aspects should be monitored to show quality of savings groups other than following meeting procedures and attendance whihc are amongst the ones Paul list. are ther other key performanc emeasurements that you can see 'stock and flow'? do we need to learn from each other? or why do savings groups in the first place if there is no value in directing the process?

who plays that role of ensuring the learning takes place and promotes tested practices?